


a high and lonesome sound

by ftmsteverogers



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: JFK assassination, M/M, Pining, Underage Drinking, Vignette, mlm author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:48:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftmsteverogers/pseuds/ftmsteverogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home was a place that could only ever be left, not stolen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a high and lonesome sound

**Author's Note:**

> "when our boots, they hit the ground / they made a high and lonesome sound" - _The Gaslight Anthem_
> 
> TW for canonical HYDRA violence.

* * *

Longing 

_1943_

 

* * *

  

“C’mon, Frenchie, we all know you wanna show off anyway,” Dum Dum said, poking Dernier in the side.  

Dernier scoffed, offended, and sipped delicately at his beer.  “I do not play on command,” he sniffed.

“It might improve morale,” Gabe said with a meaningful glance in Bucky’s direction.

Bucky looked down, smiling tightly at the half-empty glass of whiskey in front of him.  He’d been drinking steadily for the better part of an hour, at this point, but the alcohol wasn’t working on him quite as fast as it used to, and he was trying not to give it much thought.  He could feel Steve’s worry at his side, though.  It was heavy and warm.  He kept catching himself trying to lean into Steve’s space, trying to get close enough to soak up a little of that heat for himself - dangerous shit, that’s what it was, and it made his heart lurch in his chest every time he had to pull himself away.

“Well,” Dernier said, and carefully set down his tankard.  “For the good Sergeant, I play.”  He produced a harmonica out of nowhere, shaking it out before putting it to his lips dramatically.  “ _La ballade du beau Sergent_.”

Bucky found himself smiling a little despite himself as Dernier began to play, shooting a small lopsided grin toward Steve.  Steve grinned back, eyes crinkling at the corners.  “Wanna dance, beau Sergent?” Steve laughed.  His accent was terrible.  “It’s your song, after all.”

Bucky downed the second half of his drink with a grimace.  “Thought you’d never ask,” he said, holding out a hand.  His voice was rough from the whiskey, but Steve’s hand was smooth in his when he took it, and that was all that mattered.

“Sure you wouldn’t rather dance with one of the barmaids?” Steve asked, a crease between his eyebrows even as he pulled Bucky off his barstool.  “I’ll step on your feet.”

Dum Dum wolf whistled.  Bucky flipped him off and put his unoccupied hand on Steve’s shoulder.  “If I fall over, they can’t catch me,” he answered with a shrug.  He knew it didn’t come out as lightly as he’d intended it to, but Steve drew him close with a hand at the small of his back, so he could only assume he’d gotten away with it.  He could feel Steve’s hand through his shirt.  

It wasn’t until they were starting to move in tight little circles that Bucky began to realize he was more drunk than he thought.  His head swam.  They were off beat and leaned into each other’s bodies as they rocked back and forth around the room, the tip of Steve’s tongue sticking out in concentration, Bucky trying desperately to remember how to Lindy Hop through muscle memory alone.  He was still muttering instructions into Steve’s ear (“Side, together, triple step, back, front - ”) when Dernier slowed the tempo down into a gentle waltz.

Steve could fake his way through a waltz without help.  He could even look up from his feet, which put Bucky eye-to-eye with him, close enough that he could count the freckles that dusted over his cheekbones like constellations.  No one ever seemed to notice these little quirks of Steve’s features when they drew him for the Captain America posters, but Bucky did - Steve looked so much better when he was freckled and a little sunburnt, hair in cowlicked disarray, flecks of green in his blue eyes.  The man on the screen with the straight nose and shiny boots wasn’t half as pretty.

“Alright, Buck?” Steve asked.  His uniform was undone at the top, long pale column of his throat exposed to the world.  Bucky kept looking at it instead of tipping his head back to meet Steve’s eyes.  His eyes kept getting snagged on the bob of Steve’s adam’s apple.

“Yeah, ‘m alright,” Bucky said.  He could see Dum Dum dipping a protesting Morita out of the corner of his eye.

“Guess I should’ve let you take the lead.”  Steve’s smile grew a little mischievous.  His hand had slid down Bucky’s back at some point during the dance, and now it was steady at his waist, pad of his thumb smoothing over his hipbone.  “But seeing as I’m so much taller, now...”

“Asshole,” Bucky said.

“Bet I could pick you up,” Steve said.

Bucky’s eyes narrowed.  “Could not.”

Steve’s jaw set and Bucky realized his mistake two seconds before Steve was bending to sweep his legs out from under him with one arm and catching him in the crook of his other.  It didn’t even look like it took much of an effort.  Bucky was wide-eyed and breathless, clutching at Steve’s broad shoulders, and Steve was grinning down at him like the cat that ate the canary.

“Told you,” he said proudly, all hard muscle and soft blue eyes.

Bucky could feel the steady beat of Steve’s heart against his ribs.  “Christ,” he said, like it was punched out of him.  Steve was close enough that Bucky could catch the ghost of his breath against his cheek, and that was the moment he realized Dernier had stopped playing.  Everyone was still, including the barmaids, waiting to see what was going to happen next.

“Sorry,” Steve said awkwardly, and carefully put Bucky down again, easing him back onto his feet.  Bucky wasn’t sure he knew what he was apologizing for.  He wasn’t sure either of them did.

“‘S fine,” he mumbled.  “Stubborn bastard.”

“That’s me.”  Steve rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.  “Um.”

Bucky still had a hand on his shoulder, palm curled over the juncture where Steve’s neck met his shoulder.  “Never gonna get used to lookin’ up at you,” he said with a little twitch of a smile, patting Steve briefly before he pulled away.  “Let’s have another round, yeah?  Dawn’s a long way away.”

“Here here,” Falsworth said with forced gusto.  “Shall we, gentlemen?  Anna Marie, if you’d be so kind?”

Anna Marie - the redhead - refilled the pitchers, and her blonde sister Lacey took care of Bucky’s whiskey on the rocks.  Steve waved off another drink, but he let Gabe drag him back out onto the dance floor when Lacey put on the radio.  Bucky stood off to the side with Morita and Dernier, watching Steve stumble around gracelessly with Gabe, and finished his drink.  The bitter taste that hovered at the back of his tongue had nothing to do with his sloshing glass.

 

* * *

 

Rusted

_1963_

 

* * *

 

The Winter Soldier was let out of the ice for one week in November, the longest mission he’d been given in nearly a decade.  They put guns in his hands, let him feel the heavy metal weight while doctors poked at his exposed skin and cut his ragged hair short enough that it wouldn’t get caught in the plates of his metal arm.  He was tested for infection, for frostbite, for symptoms of hypothermia and flu.  Bright lights were shined in his eyes.

He was brought before a high-ranking HYDRA operative, gun still in hand, and was given his orders.  He was glad he didn’t have to wait long; having orders eased the tension that sometimes tightened the muscles between his shoulder blades.  It was the spaces between the orders that made his teeth ache.

“Soldier?” the HYDRA officer asked, glancing up from his little red book.  He met the Winter Soldier’s gaze with obvious reluctance.

The Winter Soldier adjusted his grip to let his index finger lie down the barrel of his gun.  “Ready to comply.”

He was given a team this time, three men dressed in bland suits with carefully practiced American accents.  The Winter Soldier was not good at blending in for an extended period of time.  He needed them to keep his operation unnoticed.  Their accents were fake, eyes a little too sharp, but these details would not have been obvious to someone who wasn’t looking for them.  What was more noticeable was that they had open, trustworthy faces, were quick to smile, and were very young.  The Winter Soldier wasn’t sure why he noted this - the fact that they were fresh-faced and pink at the tips of their ears - but the thought had been caught in his mind.  They were very young.

“The fuck is his deal?” Richard whispered harshly to Michael, watching the Winter Soldier with hungry curiosity.  Their van rattled and rumbled as they made their way down the highway.  “Who the hell even is he?”

“Shh!” William squeaked.  He had blond hair and flushed pink when the Winter Soldier glanced at him.  “He’ll hear you.”

Richard rolled his eyes.  “Like he can even understand us.  Look at him.  He’s a robot.”

The Winter Soldier let his gaze flicker away from their bickering.  He had more important things to do.  The file under his arm was mostly for show, but he took it out anyway, unfolding a bent-over newspaper clipping pasted to the inside flap so he could review the facts of the mission.  It was the thirteenth of November.  He could feel the chill seep between the seams of his leather jacket and bite into the flesh he still had.

The rickety van halted at a street corner, engine sputtering to a stop, and the Winter Soldier did not wait for his team to move before he got up left the van.  Elm street.  This was where he had been instructed to go.

“Were you ordered to stand around staring?” Richard asked nastily.  Michael laughed.  The Winter Soldier tracked his movements with uninterested eyes.

“C’mon, Frosty,” Michael said, kicking the Winter Soldier’s boot with the tip of his shoe.  The Winter Soldier did not disobey.  He had a mission to complete.

On November 22nd, the Winter Soldier lay on his stomach in a building six floors up on Elm street and fired three shots through the window.  Sunlight winked off his metal arm when he pulled the trigger.  Down below, the world went crazy, but up there, nestled in his sniper’s position, the death of a president didn’t mean much.  He’d had more difficult missions.

“Jesus fuck,” Richard said reverently.  He and the Winter Soldier were the only ones left in the building.  Michael was guarding the back window through which they would escape, and William was driving the getaway car two blocks away, arms tense behind the wheel.  “ _Christ._  You made the headshot.  How did you make that headshot?”

The Winter Soldier rose wordlessly and slung the rifle’s strap over his shoulder.  It was actually very easy to kill people.  The hard part was getting away with it afterward, and that was why it was time to leave.

William was waiting anxiously for them when they arrived, foot tapping against the gas pedal with nervous energy that set Richard on edge.  Nobody protested when the Winter Soldier took shotgun, Michael and Richard crowding into the back seat.

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Richard said shrilly.  “Get us out of here!”

William stomped on the gas pedal.

They’d been instructed to wait out the rest of the day and night before they went back for debriefing in order to draw the least attention to themselves.  It was very quiet inside the van.  They stopped driving when they hit a little motel with a neon vacancy sign and a droopy, plastic ficus tree in the front office, cold late afternoon sun illuminating dust motes that swam lazily through the air.  The four of them traipsed inside with their ears tuned to the slightest sound.

Michael and Richard argued over which bad sitcom to watch on the fuzzy TV, the Winter Soldier organized his ammunition and weaponry, and William washed his hands five times in the dirty sink until all the gunpowder was washed from beneath his fingernails.  Richard was the first to fall asleep.  Michael followed soon after.  The Winter Soldier sat in a chair in the corner of the room, watching them, two fingertips tracing over the outline of the knife in its sheath on his thigh.

William looked like he was about to try and say goodnight, but thought better of it at the last second and lay down to go to sleep.  The Winter Soldier waited another twenty-five minutes before he took the hidden silencer out of his pocket and screwed it onto his small handgun.  It was time to complete the second half of his mission and finish covering HYDRA’s tracks.

Sleeping targets were easy.  The Winter Soldier shot Richard through the forehead once and Michael twice through his open, snoring mouth.  The sounds of their brains hitting their pillows were very soft.

He moved to his last target, then, but William shifted in his sleep, yawning and rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand.  His blonde hair was mussed.  “Wha’ time is it?” he asked fuzzily.

“Late,” the Winter Soldier said gently.  “Shh.  Go back to sleep.”

William nodded without opening his eyes and rolled over onto his side.  His unprotected back was exposed to the room.  The Winter Soldier stood there, looking at the raised outline of his spine through his thin t-shirt, and passed his gun from hand to hand while he watched.  There was something about William’s hair - his eyes - the slope of his pale spine under the orange streetlight glow -

The Winter Soldier put the end of his gun to the back of William’s neck, right at the base of his skull.  He took a deep breath before he pulled the trigger.

When HYDRA came to retrieve him, the Winter Soldier was sitting on the edge of the motel bed, stroking his fingers through William’s hair.  He had been doing this for hours, metal carding through the soft strands before he let them fall through his fingers like corn silk.  

Two armed guards knocked his hands away and herded him out of the room, shoved him into the back of William’s unmarked van.

“Well done, Soldier,” the HYDRA captain said when the Winter Soldier was returned to him, almost kind when he smiled and patted the Winter Soldier’s cheek with one leather-gloved hand.  “Well done.”

 

* * *

 

Seventeen

_1934_

 

* * *

 

It was fifteen minutes until midnight and Bucky was eyeing the half empty bottle of whiskey in Steve’s lap dubiously.  “Small sips, short stuff,” he said, and ruffled Steve’s hair until it stuck up in the back.  “It’ll hit you pretty quick.”

“You get drunk _once_ and you think you’re an expert,” Steve muttered under his breath.

“Twice,” Bucky corrected cheerfully.  “Go on, then, make me proud.”

“I fucking hate you,” Steve said, but he raised the bottle to his lips anyway with determination creasing between his eyebrows.  He turned purple and spluttered, coughing into a fist, and Bucky had to lunge to catch the bottle before it sloshed.

“Careful!” he laughed.  “Jesus, Rogers.”

“Sorry,” Steve wheezed.  “Christ.”

Bucky swigged from the bottle while Steve was catching his breath.  He made a face - nose wrinkled, eyes screwed up - but he managed not to cough, which made him feel a little smug as he passed the whiskey back to Steve.  “Your turn.”

“This tastes _so bad_ ,” Steve said, but he took another sip anyway, carefully this time. “Happy birthday, Buck,” he coughed, grinning, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The tips of his ears were pink and there was a spotty blush blooming high on his cheekbones.  

They passed the bottle back and forth a couple times until Bucky could feel the warmth in the pit of his stomach start to unfurl up into his throat.  His head was pleasantly fuzzy.  Steve was swaying back and forth slightly, eyes half closed, humming along to a song that only he could hear.

“Havin’ a good time, pal?” Bucky asked from where he was lying on the floor.  He rolled onto his stomach so he could put his chin on Steve’s knee.

“Yeah,” Steve said, and combed his fingers through the dark hair that was falling into Bucky’s eyes.  “Y’need a haircut.”

“You need better _vision_ ,” Bucky countered, grinning.

Steve groaned, rolling his eyes.  “I’m gonna _fight you._ ”

Bucky just shook his head, laughing into Steve’s knee.  He didn’t know why he found it so funny, but the heat in his belly and the way Steve’s fingers curled through his hair made it impossible not to be happy.  Not with seventeen years’ worth of love pressing down on his sternum with a warm, comfortable weight.

“C’mon, Buck, you’re drooling on my leg,” Steve complained, tugging at Bucky’s shirt until Bucky dragged himself upward and sat up with his head lolling onto Steve’s small shoulder.

“Better?” Bucky asked.

“I _guess_ ,” Steve said, but he was smiling.  “Comfy?”

Bucky nodded and smiled into the curve of Steve’s neck.  “You make a pretty good pillow. Bony, but good.”

Steve poked his cheek.  “Not my fault.”

Bucky just snuggled closer and let Steve laugh softly at him with his warm cheek pressed to the crown of Bucky’s head.

 

* * *

 

Daybreak

_2016_

 

* * *

 

Steve was asleep, curled on his side, and Bucky was watching him through half-open eyes.  The room was dark, save for the occasional car headlights that slid over the ceiling and made Bucky’s left arm glitter. The room was dark and Bucky watched Steve with his hungry eyes, counted his ribs, counted the notches of his spine that cast deep shadows on the plane of his bare back.  It was more difficult than he’d anticipated to match their breaths. Steve always breathed so much deeper than Bucky was able to.

Sometimes, when the blonde body sleeping next to him was too overwhelming, Bucky slipped out of bed and levered himself silently out the open window. His feet barely made a sound when they hit the concrete below. His body knew how to do this, even if his head did not - his knees and ankles absorbed his weight before he could feel off-kilter in the confines of his skin.  

Then he would flip his hood up and put his mismatched hands in his pockets so that he wouldn’t be spotted as he wandered the empty city streets.  There wasn’t much to fear at three in the morning, but the ritual of obscuring his face from view was one that comforted him. It was his decision now, who got to see him.  He fully intended to exercise that right.

He thought the city was at its best in the moments between late night and early morning. Just before the sun rose, just before everyone woke up and started going about their day, the skeleton of the city waited with quiet patience to be brought back to life. Brooklyn restarted its own bruised heart every day without falter, without fail. Every morning was a resurrection.  Bucky liked being present to witness it, to press his cold palm against a brick wall and think, _good morning, pal. You ‘n me both gotta come back from the dead today._

He was always back in bed at Steve’s side before dawn.

 

* * *

 

Furnace

_1945_

 

* * *

 

Bucky’s bowed head let dark tangled strands of hair fall over his face, but the matted curtain didn’t give him cover when the HYDRA doctor took a fistful of it and yanked his head back.  He hissed a breath through his teeth, squinting into the bright flashlight that was shown into his eyes, and tried not to squirm when two guards walked through the door.  It was always bad news when the doctors had muscle to back them up.

The doctor kept his fistful of hair as the guards wheeled a chair into the center of the room.  There were restraints on the arms, open like bear traps, but it didn’t look like it was meant to hold a person.  There was too much machinery, too many wires to have any business with the living, the breathing.  The guards moved out of Bucky’s line of sight, dragging the chair with them, but Bucky could still hear the sounds of metal scraping against stone floor, and that was almost worse.

“Name?” the doctor requested.  His latex glove scraped against Bucky’s scalp.

“Barnes, James Buchanan,” Bucky spit out.  “32557038.”

“Well, Barnes, James Buchanan,” the doctor said, and tapped the end of a pencil against one of Bucky’s hollow cheeks.  “It is time for you to answer to a new name.”

Bucky heard the tell-tale crackle of electricity behind him and was suddenly grateful that the doctor’s firm grip was keeping his eyes dead ahead on the door, the cracked-open door, taunting him with the slice of warm light that cut into the room.

“Go fuck yourself,” he spat, because that was what Steve would have done, and he was trying to do Steve proud until Captain America crashed into this HYDRA base and whisked him away again.  Bucky would lean against Steve’s side, Steve’s warm side, and Steve would say _did you give ‘em hell?_ And Bucky would laugh hysterically, would clutch at Steve harder and say _boy, did I ever._  Steve would keep a broad hand on his back, right between his shoulder blades, and they would walk right out into the sun -

“Prep him,” the doctor said flatly, releasing Bucky’s head.  Bucky let it loll forward.  His ragged hair fell back into his face.  The two thick-armed guards undid his restraints and hauled him to his feet, fingers digging into his biceps as they manhandled him into the new chair.  Bucky struggled against their hold on him with all the weak resistance his body could muster.

He hoped Steve would come before he stopped resisting.

The guards had to pry his jaw open to shove the rubber mouth guard in.  Electricity crackled ominously behind him again.  The bear trap restraints closed around his upper arms and his right wrist, cold metal biting into his skin, and he started breathing faster when the headpiece was lowered to his face.  The fourth restraint closed around the air where his left wrist was supposed to be.

“Flip the switch,” the doctor said, scribbling something on his clipboard.  He wasn’t even watching when one of the guards pulled a lever on the side of the chair.

White sparks flew.

 

* * *

 

Nine

_2016_

 

* * *

 

“Don’t worry,” Bucky said to Steve’s slightly concerned expression.  “The serum I was given may have been off-brand, but it still means this shit can’t hurt me.”  He raised his cigarette to his lips again, taking a long drag before he leaned his elbows on the balcony railing and blew the smoke out of his mouth in a stream.  He was glad to have something to fiddle with, some small burning thing that he could hold between two of his fingers.

“I was more worried about your mood than your smoking habit,” Steve said, and Bucky could feel his hesitation before he put his hand on the small of Bucky’s back, but he tried not to let it bother him.  

He kept smoking.  The city below was spread out like a map, bright pinpricks of light winking up at him, glittering an advertisement for the secrets buried beneath the concrete.  Bucky wanted to scratch the surface off the earth sometimes, dig his fingernails into the cement and unearth the hidden bones that slept fitfully beneath the power lines.  He knew they were there.  He knew he could not be the only ghost in this city.

“You okay?” Steve asked softly.  His thumb stroked over the soft dip of Bucky’s spine.

Bucky stubbed out his cigarette on the balcony railing, grinding the tip down into the metal.  He tried to count his breaths, tried to even them out the way his therapist had told him to, but he could never make it to ten.  He always stalled out at nine.

“I’m sorry,” he said, turning his head to look at Steve.  He had a funny look on his face, half frown, half wince.  “For everything, Steve.”

Steve’s face hardened.  “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“Stop.”  Bucky flicked his cigarette butt down onto the street below and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.  “Okay? Let me apologize.”

“How am I supposed to forgive you for shit you didn’t do?” Steve asked with a stubborn set to his jaw.

“I did it, though,” Bucky said.  He shrugged reasonably.  “I didn’t want to, but I did it.”

Bucky could see the determination hardening on Steve’s face.  He only had a moment to prepare himself before Steve was hooking two fingers through his belt loops and tugging him into the warm circle of his arms; the hard, desperate kiss that followed was a kiss Bucky knew well, down to the core of him, down to the marrow of his bones.  He floundered for a second, hands jumping like startled birds, but he quickly regained his equilibrium and kissed Steve back.  His hands landed on either side of Steve’s face.

He gasped aloud when Steve wound his fingers in his dark hair and gently tugged his head back, exposing his throat.  Steve kissed down his jaw, teeth scraping gently over his adam’s apple, hands smoothing down Bucky’s sides until they were anchored at his hips - he sucked a hard kiss into the crook of Bucky’s neck, tongue caught on the soft skin that jumped with the motion of Bucky’s pulse.

“Tell me you forgive me,” Bucky said, breathing raggedly.  His fingertips dug into Steve’s shoulder blade and left red marks.  “Say it, Steve, say it - ”

Steve shoved Bucky back into the railing and dropped to his knees.  He undid Bucky’s belt and fly with a practiced ease that made Bucky’s knees weak - he clutched at the railing for balance, panting, but that did nothing to soften the wave of heat that washed over him when Steve looked up at him with dark eyes.

“I forgive you,” Steve said, breathing hard.  “For everything, Buck.”

Bucky wasn’t sure if it was a sob or a groan that was torn from his chest when Steve finally put his mouth on his cock, but it was a desperate sound that was shelled out of his throat like a bullet, an animal sound.  His metal fingers wound into Steve’s hair, not tugging, not pulling, just resting there on the crown of Steve’s head.  Feeling the soft blond hair between his fingers.  Feeling the soft, slick drag of Steve’s tongue.

Touch was overwhelming, after so many years without skin-on-skin contact.  He could still feel the ghosts of all the kisses on his neck, Steve’s hands on his hips and thighs - Steve’s handprints were all over him, marking him, making him feel like he was coming back from the dead with every spit-slick bob of Steve’s head.

The wet sound it made when Steve’s mouth popped off his dick was obscene.  “God,” Steve said, awed.  “Look at you.”

Bucky looked away, embarrassed.  “Quit it.”

Steve stroked Bucky’s dick slowly, firmly, twisting his wrist as he kissed the stripe of bare stomach beneath the hem of Bucky’s rucked-up shirt.  “Gorgeous,” he murmured into Bucky’s hipbone.  “Too damn pretty for your own good.”

Bucky could feel every breath scrape down his throat, a familiar warmth twisting and unfurling in the very pit of his stomach.  “Close,” he bit out through clenched teeth.

Steve bent back to his task all the more urgently, sucking on the head of Bucky’s cock with one hand sliding up Bucky’s body, reaching for his hand.  Bucky twined their fingers together.  He clutched at Steve’s hand when he came, hips bucking.

Steve stroked him through the aftershocks that rocked through his body.  His touch was gentle, more gentle than Bucky thought he deserved, and the litany of praise that tumbled out of his mouth was almost more painfully kind than Bucky could bear.  He was safe in the cradle of Steve’s warm arms, warm hands, warm mouth that pressed kisses to his stomach and hipbone.  He was safe and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

“Say it again,” Bucky said, voice hoarse.  “One more time.”

Steve delicately kissed the side of Bucky’s knee.  “I forgive you,” he murmured into the seam of Bucky’s jeans.  “Of course I forgive you.”

 

* * *

 

Benign

_1938_

 

* * *

 

“Take care of my son,” Sarah Rogers had said, as she lay in her bed with a damp pillow beneath her cheek.  Bucky tucked the blankets more firmly around her, ignoring the way his hands shook.  “You hear me, James?  You take care of my boy.”

“Ma’am,” Bucky said.  “I’ve been taking care of him since we were knee-high.  I ain’t gonna stop.”

Sarah smiled, putting her hand on Bucky’s cheek.  “Such a good boy,” she sighed.  “You know I always thought of you as my own.”

Bucky did know.  He never called her “mother”, but that was the word that lay beneath all the other words, a secret that the two of them kept to themselves.  And Steve - Steve knew Bucky was family, but that was one of the things that they didn’t ever discuss.  Bucky didn’t want to think about why the number of those had been growing.

Now Sarah Rogers was dead and Bucky was beginning to realize what taking care of Steve really meant.  It wasn’t just iodine to scraped knees and elbows, it wasn’t just asthma cigarettes and hot chicken soup, although there was a fair amount of all of those.  Loving Steve Rogers meant loving someone who was going to die young.  Whether this was from an illness or a knife to the stomach in a dark alley, no one could guess for sure; all he knew was that Steve was not going to live to see his hair turn grey and white, and if Bucky was going to follow Steve to the ends of the earth, then neither was he.

Most of the time it didn’t seem like a difficult choice, not really.  

But Sarah Rogers was dead.  Bucky had seen her coffin lowered into the ground.  He watched the shattered-glass rain collecting in the hollows of Steve’s collar bones as they waited for a cab to pick them up.  He wrapped an arm around Steve’s shivering shoulders, let Steve tuck cold, wet fingers in his pockets, but that didn’t change the fact that Bucky was the one thing standing between Steve and a grave next to his mother’s.

 _Take care of my boy_ , Sarah Rogers had said.

 _God, I’m trying,_ Bucky thought as he pulled Steve close.

 

* * *

 

Homecoming

_1973_

 

* * *

 

The sun shined down.  He could feel it on his face.  He wouldn’t remember it later, but in that moment, with his face tipped up toward the sky, the sunlight bathed him in a warmth that made his skin glow.  He’d stolen a pair of gloves to hide the glint and glitter of his bad left hand, and he knew he should keep his head down, flip up his coat collar, but he wanted to feel the light on his face.  He wanted to fall asleep with sunshine in his mouth.

It had been a very long time since he’d last wanted something.

He wouldn’t be able to escape from his handlers for very long, he knew this, he did, but he’d seen a flash of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye as he stalked through the city on his mission, and that had been the end of it.  He’d chased the flash of gold through Brooklyn, tore after him with his boots hitting the ground so hard he could feel the impact in his knees.  But the blonde boy was gone when he rounded the corner.  He was left with nothing but his own two hands to guide him.

He bought a hot dog with money he pickpocketed from a fast-walking businessman.  “You want mustard?” the hotdog man asked, tongs in hand.  The empty shell of James Barnes and the Winter Soldier shrugged.  He couldn’t call up the sense memory of what mustard tasted like. 

He took his hotdog and sat on a staircase that led up to a library.  He licked dripped mustard off his wrist.  He knew where he needed to go.  He just wasn’t sure how to get there.  He had a map in his pocket, swiped from the subway, but he was more inclined to rely on the tug deep in the pit of his stomach.  A compass rose in the core of him, pulling him toward the heart of the city.

He finished his hot dog and got up to throw away the paper.  It was time to heed the call in his blood and make his way west, pick his way through the alleys and avenues until he hit Brooklyn’s nervous system.  He got on a bus in the back so he didn’t have to pay.  He sat next to a woman knitting a tiny blue sock, his cap pulled down low.  

“It’s for my niece,” she explained, smiling, when she caught him looking.

“What’s her name?” he asked.  He knew what to say because tricking people into thinking he was harmless was what he had been trained for.

“Sarah,” the woman said, and pulled her wallet out of her purse so she could show him the two pictures she had tucked into a side pocket.  The pictures were new and glossy and felt like glass under his gloved fingertips, but many things felt like glass when he made contact.  It was very easy for him to break the things he touched.

“She’s beautiful,” he said, twitching a smile as he looked down at the laughing baby.  “Looks just like you.”  He wasn’t sure why he was convinced she would grow up to be blonde, when her aunt was a redhead.  Something about the name Sarah made him certain.

He got off the bus at the next stop, heart jumping in his throat at the sight of the street sign.  Familiarity made every footstep heavier.  He shoved his hands in his pockets, watching his breath fog in front of his lips as he walked, watching the surety with which his body brought him closer to his destination.  His pulse raced as he neared the corner, turning with his lips half parted, ready to break into a run -

But there was nothing there.  The building and the two others adjacent to it had been torn down, leaving a small, decomposing corner store and little empty lot.  Brown grass shot up lethargically from the ground.  

This was not what he had come for.

He sat in the dead grass, knees tucked under chin, and waited for his handlers to find him.  This dirt was where his body had wanted him to go.  Whatever had once stood here, tucked away and blanketed by the sounds of traffic, was long dead, and the man that sat in the center of where their ashes had been scattered was no different.

Approaching footsteps crushed the brown grass underfoot, but he didn’t stir.  Didn’t even look up.

“Asset, stand down,” a HYDRA handler named Derlish said warily, hand raised between him and the Winter Soldier.  The Winter Soldier made no move, but this didn’t seem to comfort him.  “Wilcox, call for backup - ”

Wilcox fumbled his radio and called for backup in his thin, reedy voice.  Derlish put handcuffs on the Winter Soldier’s limp wrists without any resistance.

The records all showed that the Winter Soldier’s disobedience had been regulated effectively within two and a half years.  HYDRA took the memory of the mustard from him, took the small knit sock and photograph, the smell of hotdogs and library books - but HYDRA could not take Brooklyn away from the deepest center of him, the part of him that was always in shadow.  The city was alive, the city was patient, the city was in the blood that ran through his veins.  

Home was a place that could only ever be left, not stolen.

 

* * *

 

One

_1937_

 

* * *

 

“Well,” Bucky said, putting his bag down just inside the doorway.  A cloud of dust rose like fine flour as soon as it landed.  “We’re home.”

Steve nudged a mildewed wall with his toe.  “This is gonna take a lot of scrubbing.”

“Don’t breathe too hard, okay?” Bucky said, coughing, as he moved farther into the room.  “Not until we dust a little.”

“No sense in having an asthma attack and dying before we actually move in,” Steve agreed, cautiously raising a sleeve to cover his mouth as he went to investigate the kitchen.  “Guess we got what we paid for, huh?”

Bucky coughed again, which was answer enough.  This wasn’t the cheapest place he’d found - those had been more sketchy than even his empty wallet could stomach - but it made the top ten. _Top five_ , he amended when he saw the crack in the window that led to the fire escape.

Steve poked his head out of the kitchen.  “One bedroom, right?”

Bucky grinned.  “Only gonna share the bed if you promise not to steal the covers.”

“It happens _one time_ and you don’t let it go,” Steve complained, rolling his eyes as he pushed past Bucky to head to the bedroom.

“If by one time you mean ‘every fucking time’, maybe,” Bucky called after him, but he was smiling when he followed him down the short hallway.  There wasn’t much by way of furniture, just one bare mattress and a tall lamp given to Bucky by his mother, but a little thrill was zinging down his spine at the sight.  This place was a shithole, but god, it belonged to him, and he could tell from the way Steve was reverently touching the mattress with his fingertips that he felt the same.

“Thanks, Bucky,” Steve said softly, picking at a mattress seam.  “Probably don’t say it enough, but - ”

“It’s okay, pal,” Bucky said uncomfortably.

Steve smiled tightly at the floor, hair falling into his face.  “Okay.”

“Besides, you’re the one who’s gonna make this place look good,” Bucky said, throwing himself down onto the mattress next to Steve.  “My little blonde housewife.”

Steve made a little noise of outrage.  “Bucky!”

Bucky smiled beatifically.  “Honestly, Steve, I don’t know how your mother let you come live here with me in sin, but - ”

Steve tackled him to the ground before he could finish his sentence.

 

* * *

 

Freight Car

_2016_

 

* * *

 

The Winter Soldier did not die without a struggle.  This was the part that Steve didn’t understand, no matter how Bucky tried to explain it.  The Winter Soldier was trained to fight, to survive, to claw his way to the surface with his metal fingertips.  He did not die easily.  And when the fight was over - when Bucky Barnes was the only one left standing - the Winter Soldier’s dead body was still there to be dealt with.  Bucky carried the corpse with him everywhere he went.

He wanted to treat the body kindly.  He did not want to be the Winter Soldier anymore, he was grateful to have his head to himself, but the Soldier had protected him for so many decades, snarling ice and spray of bullets cooperating to bend the odds in their favor.  The two of them kept themselves alive together.  The potential to be him - to be an animal beast who could never miss a headshot - had been there from the beginning.  HYDRA had done its best to lock him down, shut him up, but the Winter Soldier had been a force of nature.  You could not invent a force of nature any more than you could control it.

Bucky Barnes, youth of Brooklyn, had always had an animal inside him, ready to bare its teeth and lash out.  Steve Rogers had always had a muscled vigilante waiting in his bones for a serum to unlock it from the confines of his marrow.  If their positions had been reversed, if the Captain had been poisoned with diseased ice, if HYDRA had put guns in his hands and cut out pieces of his brain until he was someone he did not recognize, Bucky knew that the stars and stripes would have turned feral.  Steve would have been just as vicious as the Winter Soldier under the wrong circumstances, Bucky could see it in his eyes.

He hoped this meant that if he had been given Steve’s serum, if he had been given a costume and a shield to put on his arm, the delicate and tattered pieces of him could have come together with the wild animal in his chest and formed a person not unlike a hero.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm barneswilson on tumblr! Come say hi :)


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